The year 1987 was not the best year for me up to that point, the stock exchanges crash in October 1987. I had a few hairy purchases and I lost money in the process. At the same time the Montezin sale in New York ( talked about this earlier) brought me much needed cash and balanced the books nicely. Sold for 24,000 dollars in 1987 at Christies and yet, it remained unsold at Sothebys a year earlier at 5,000 dollars.
Timing and sale venue ! Remember this readers!
A few other sales brought in a few more thousand pounds and the business was expanding steadily. My stock was increasing both in number of paintings and also in quality of paintings but that was on the thin side of it. Nothing very important in that group of paintings and I had a good sum of money looking for a home! I knew the names, I knew the sums required but I could not find the paintings.
I was not buying anything clearly very good and I was on the look-out all over the world for that master work, or that painting that would make the big difference. One thousand pounds or two profit was fine but ….
I had achieved that, I wanted more and I was getting greedier and greedier. My sights were on the major artists in the secondary or perhaps first class art. Nothing like that for me because when the crash happened it took away a big chunk of the market I was working with but still ………..
I kept buying small items here and there and started fooling around with items that I did not need to buy. I bought them because I liked them, because I wanted my own house to look good and be my showcase.
I bought Satsuma vases for pleasure, bowls for pleasure, tables and chairs, cabinets and bookcases. I spent money I could use to buy a painting and sell quickly for profit. I bought a couple of Greek paintings too, I used a small , very small sum of money, ( 300.00 pounds) just because they spoke about the Med and the land of the Gods.
I changed course now. My profit target was anything over one thousand pounds otherwise I did not buy for the business. Small pieces were bought for myself, major investments were for the business.
Slowly and gradually the 1987 – 1988 season was coming to a close and I had bought nothing of serious quality. I was buying and selling smaller items but where is the masterpiece? Where is that painting that inspires, has the artist to support it and it also has the potential to become a star painting?
All the artists were known to everybody but…. were they really all? Was there anything left for the new faces in the market? Frustrating, very frustrating. I felt I was missing the boat especially the after crash of prices in the art world as a result of the stock exchanges crash. I was left behind. More importantly I did not use that period to my advantage. No opportunities! No art I liked and I could afford!
Nowhere to be seen, nowhere to be bought. The season was literally over, the major sales nearly gone and I…, I was sitting on about twenty thousand pounds waiting to be invested.
I was still looking for that lottery painting. Yes, it was desperate and I was so determined. Keep the money, collect the money, something will come up for you too and then…….
San Francisco and Paris come to the rescue!
